Besides getting married in Oakland, Myung and I were total tourists for much of the month we were there. Some of the things we saw I had seen once or twice, some many times, and couple of things, never. Myung, however, had never been to the US. It was fun to take her around. It felt like a honeymoon, really, starting two weeks before we actually got married.
Bear with me while I write and show pictures of things many of you have seen many times and know all about.
We spent three days in Los Angeles. LA is a huge place with many things to see and do, though the vibe there does little for me. Our agenda was to visit with my niece, Anne, and her family, take in a Dodger baseball game, visit Koreatown, and maybe something else without lingering long.
The first thing we did was the Dodger game because the Korean player, Hyun Jin Ryu, was supposed to pitch. They changed the rotation and Zach Greinke pitched instead, but we had fun. Myung likes baseball. I have been to hundreds of games and may ballparks, but never Dodger stadium, so it was fun for me, too. Here is Greinke warming up in the bullpen before the game, and Dan Haren and Clayton Kershaw looking on, sort of. Kershaw is the best pitcher in baseball.
Here is the birdseye view of the field from the cheapo nosebleed seats we had behind the plate.
That evening and again before we left, we went to Koreatown. Although it is actually quite a large area and has a genuine Korean character, it is not photoworthy. We had a respectable dinner there and looked in some stores selling Korean products. Nothing special. Myung feels the same. She’s not the type who needs to hang out with other Koreans. If someone else did, and they wanted to be in LA, that might be a place to live. Bring money if you want to buy anything from Korea there. Think 1000% markup.
The next day was the real reason we lingered in La before going north. I wanted to visit my niece, Anne, her husband, Nico, and their new son, Zachary. Here they are:
I really looked forward to spending some hours with them. The last time I was in the US in December 2012 was to go to their wedding. Their plate was full then, for obvious reasons. Plus, I’ve been out of the US for 8 years, except for a few months here and there, while she’s been in LA, where I never go. And even when we were both in Northern California, she was in high school, more than 20 years ago. We had a nice day, visiting in their home for a while, then walking around with the pram and going out to lunch. For a 6 week old, Zachary travels well. Suffice it to say, we enjoyed out time with them.
They live in Venice, which is a small beach town adjacent to LA. We didn’t take any pictures of them during our walk around Venice, but we have pics of Venice, one of the fun places in the LA area. It’s named Venice because of it’s vague resemblance to Venice, Italy. It has many canals and is on the sea, in this case, of course, the Pacific Ocean. Unlike Venice, Italy, the canal area is neighborhoody, though obviously not a World Heritage site.
The seashore is definitely not like Venice, Italy. It’s a semi-fun, borderline grotesque tourist haven, for the most part. That said, you can block that out and focus toward the ocean. The beach is contiguous with more beach with different names, like Santa Monica beach to the north.
Off the beach is weird fun.
The weirdest of all there is the unabashed display of narcissism at an open air body building gym. I’m told some of these cats have been showing off here for years.
LA can be about it’s own brand of weird. Anne loves it there, even though she isn’t weird. Me? I prefer Bay Area weird. For those of you not familiar with the US, LA or the Bay Area, you just gotta go there for a while to know what I’m talking about.
I’m going to break up the California travelogue into three chunks. That’s going to be it for this one. Coming up maybe even later today will be our drive up the coast.